WORLD CUP DRAW’S A BOOST FOR SOUTHGATE

ENGLAND GET TUNISIA, PANAMA AND BELGIUM IN GROUP G AT THE RUSSIAN WORLD CUP

Premier League stars such as Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku, they are currently ranked fifth in the world, 10 places higher than England.

Southgate said the teams’ club connections would no doubt lead to considerable training-ground banter.

But the links between the teams extend to the dugouts as Belgium are managed by former Swansea, Wigan and Everton boss Roberto Martinez, a man Southgate is used to seeing at games and with whom he once shared a TV studio at the 2012 European Championships.

The England boss also did his coaching badges with Belgium’s assistant coach Graeme Jones, the North East-born former Doncaster and Wigan striker who has been Martinez’s right-hand man for the last decade.

Martinez, who also looked pretty happy with his fixtures, told reporters Southgate is “a gentleman I admire and I wish him the best of luck, apart from the game in the World Cup”.

That game, the pair’s last in the group, is in Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, and takes place on June 28.

England’s opener is against Tunisia, ranked 27th, in Volgograd on June 18, with the game against 56thranked Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on June 24.

This means England will avoid any particularly arduous journeys from their quiet base in Repino, near St Petersburg.

Volgograd is 1,000 miles away, two and a half hours by plane, while the flights to Nizhny and Kaliningrad will both be under two hours.

In total, the team will travel 4,700 miles in the group stage, which sounds a lot, but they have avoided trips to the most distant, and warmest, venues and will only cross one time zone.

Starting on the tournament’s fifth day will also give Southgate longer to prepare, although Tunisia’s manager Nabil Maaloul pointed out this also helps his team as they do not have to play while fasting for Ramadan.

Southgate recalled making his World Cup debut in England’s 2-0 win over Tunisia in their opening game at France 98. “Being involved in that game – the colour and the atmosphere around it – was one of the best days of my life,” he said. “So to have the opportunity to do that as a coach now, leading my team into an opening fixture of the World Cup, will be an incredibly proud moment.”

Hosts Russia were given about as good a chance of advancing as they could have hoped for – in a group with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay.